Plasco Energy Group, Inc. (PlascoEnergy) of Ottawa announced
that the Ottawa City Council unanimously agreed to issue
a letter of intent to PlascoEnergy to build, own and
operate a 440 ton-per-day waste conversion facility that
will process residual household waste that would otherwise
be sent to landfill.

The City will continue to operate source separation blue
box (plastic, metal and glass), black box (paper and
paperboard) and yard waste composting programs introduced
many years ago, and is currently introducing source separation
of organics for anaerobic digestion. The Plasco Conversion
Facility will convert substantially all residual household
waste to valuable products, including synthetic fuel
gas for operation of internal combustion engines. Generators
driven by the engines and by waste heat from the conversion
process will produce approximately 21 MW of net saleable
base-load power for delivery to Hydro Ottawa.

Upon approval, the facility will be funded, built, owned
and operated by PlascoEnergy and will be capable of processing
440 tons per day (150,000 tons per year) of garbage.
PlascoEnergy will separate large metal objects prior
to feeding the garbage into the conversion system and
will send them back to the City for recycling. The City
will pay a tipping fee of $60 per ton of waste processed,
escalated to reflect CPI over a 20-year contract. All
risks of operation and efficiency of power generation
are assumed by PlascoEnergy. The City will receive 25%
of annual revenues that exceed an amount mutually agreed
to by PlascoEnergy and the City.

The facility will occupy a six-acre site near an existing
city owned and operated landfill. The city’s leftover
garbage will be converted into synthetic engine fuel,
agricultural sulphur, industrial salt and construction
aggregate with no emissions to the air, land or water.
In addition, the excess moisture in the waste will be
recovered through the process as clean water.

The engines will drive electrical generators to produce
reliable base-load power. Emissions from the engines
will be monitored by continuous emissions monitoring
and by periodic source testing. The results of both continuous
and source testing will be reported on the ZeroWasteOttawa.com
website and will be reviewed by independent experts approved
by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE). An independent
Public Advisory Committee will review and make public
comments as it sees fit on the environmental performance
of the facility and MOE will assure that the facility
continuously meets its environmental requirements under
the Ministry’s Certificate of Approval.

The move by City Council comes three years after the
Council approved development by PlascoEnergy of a plant
to demonstrate the Plasco Conversion System on a City-owned
site on the capped Nepean Landfill on Trail Road. The
demonstration facility received funding support by Sustainable
Development Technology Canada, and from the Ontario Ministry
of Research and Innovation. Ottawa provided the demonstration
site and has provided garbage for processing at the demonstration
plant. The Plasco Trail Road demonstration plant began
commissioning in July last year.

All necessary permits including Certificates of Approval
by the Ontario MOE must be received before commencement
of operations. Certificates of Approval will be based
on exhaustive operating data from the existing Trail
Road Demonstration Facility. The entire process of approvals
and construction is expected to take approximately two
years.